Georges Mougin

Born in St Malo, Georges Mougin grew up in cod-fishing world of Newfoundland. His father ran a local workshop that maintained the fishing boats.

In 1947, a few years after leaving Arts et Métiers, with the help of a Danish naval architect, he coordinated the work of transforming a US surplus ship into a polar vessel that became the “Commandant Charcot”. This was when he met Paul-Emile Victor, and was the start of a 50-year friendship and of his fascination with the Antarctic.

Together with the Saudi prince Mohammed al-Faisal, he founded the ITI Company (Iceberg Transport International), which from 1975 to 1981 established the conditions of feasibility of transferring and exploiting tabular icebergs from the Antarctic, but had to give up the project in the face of numerous obstacles.

Since 2003, taking account of the creation of oceanic forecasting services, and the availability of maritime resources developed for off-shore oil drilling, Georges Mougin endeavored to reactivate this project to exploit icebergs.

Watch the scientific TV documentary

Related information

Francois Mauviel, His Right Arm

François Mauviel spent his entire childhood in Granville, in the Manche département and is passionate about the sea and navigation.

From 1978 to 1981, Georges Mougin put him in charge of the Icebergs Transport International Company’s program of research and engineering on the transfer of Antarctic tabular icebergs, which led him to carry out a scientific expedition to monitor the drift of icebergs in the Southern Ocean.

They followed separate paths for many years until, in 2003, he again met with Georges Mougin to reactivate the research into the feasibility of transporting icebergs, taking into account the significant technical progress that had been made since their earlier work.